In contemporary Havana, revolutionary hip-hop floats on the air but it is a sentimental song on the radio that transports elderly shoeshine man Chico (voiced by Eman Xor Ona with music by Valdés) back to bittersweet memories of his youth in the Cuban capital of 1948.

In those days, Chico was the hottest piano player in Cuba with an eye for the ladies. One evening, he is bewitched by the sultry voice and fiery manner of singer Rita (Limara Meneses but sung by Idania Valdés).

They join forces to compete in a radio contest and spend a passionate night in each other’s arms. They seem made for each other until Chico’s current girlfriend appears the next morning and all hell breaks loose. As the decades pass we witness a great love story constantly fractured by jealousy, betrayal and misplaced pride.

Chico & Rita has vague echoes of Oscar Hijuelos’ Pulitzer prize-winning novel Mambo Kings Play Songs Of Love and of Martin Scorsese’s underrated big band musical New York, New York.

It weaves the central love story through true events, adding real life personalities like Woody Herman, Marlon Brando and Latin percussionist Chano Pozo (Yaroldi Abreu) to the mix as Rita heads to Hollywood and Chico joins Dizzy Gillespie in Fifties Paris.

There are sketchy allusions to the politics of a period that witnessed the early seeds of the civil rights movement and Castro’s revolution, which becomes a defining moment in the lives of Chico and Rita and the history of Cuba. When jazz is declared an imperialist self-indulgence by the Castro regime, Chico’s world starts to shrink beyond all recognition.

The film looks gorgeous. Directors Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal and Tono Errando have a real appreciation for the different cultures that they depict. Cuba is pictured in blinding brightness and warm hues so that you almost feel the heat rising from the streets.

When Rita becomes a major American star as Rita LaBelle, she inevitably moves into the world of Hollywood make-believe. She becomes a figure with recognisable elements of Ava Gardner and Dorothy Dandridge in her personality, especially when she discovers that black performers are second-class citizens in her adopted land. There are scenes of her emoting on a Hollywood soundstage and the use of colour and the framing really do combine to transport you to a Fifties world of larger‑than-life Cinemascope and vibrant Technicolor.

There is a storybook, almost comic strip look to Chico & Rita that underlines the sense that it is a lush romantic fairytale, while the music is endlessly seductive.

This is a simple story but one that is told with a great deal of affection and spirit. The end result is a delightful one-off.